Bundled into a wraparound cotton housecoat, with her hair in rollers, Nigella Lawson couldn’t look less like the woman next door. Unless you happened to live next door to Sophia Loren circa 1965, in which case you won’t be fazed by the killer combination of everyday earthiness and innate glamour.
Nigella’s gift of appearing simultaneously fabulous and reassuringly ordinary is her unique selling point. And if there’s one time of year when women want to buy into ‘Nigella World’, it’s Christmas.
“Christmas appeals to the camp side of me,” she confides. “This year, I’ve really gone to town on the twinkly lights and the Swedish-y, gingham-y stuff. And, of course, there’s the greedy side of me – because at Christmas everything can be big portions. However, it’s also an incredibly high-pressure time of year for women.
“You have cooking combined with family, and together they’re enormously incendiary. I think it would be an extreme act of cruelty to imply that you can have a stress-free Christmas. Because there’s no such thing. Wrapping presents, for example, is the thing that sends me over the edge and under the other side. I always get my hair stuck under the sellotape, which is completely disgusting for the person opening the present.
“And it’s not always possible to get succour from someone on television saying, ‘Well, I find this terribly easy!’ So there are times when I am very strict with viewers and say, ‘You will feel hysterical. You will feel stressed out and exhausted and I can’t do anything about that.’ But there are certain strategies I can suggest to try to relieve some of that stress in the kitchen.”
Preparation is key to beating the clock. “The trick with big meals is not having to keep too many timings in your head. So with any meal I always try to give the amount of time it can be prepared in advance or if it can be frozen.”
But if you’re the kind of cook for whom feeding the multitude is a deep mystery, there is the rest of Christmas to be getting on with.
“You don’t have to do the whole Domestic Goddess thing to revel in the solace of the earth,” she points out. “If you want to put up fairy lights everywhere and then get pizza delivered, that’s absolutely OK by me. I’d never say no to chips and curry sauce – I have very low tastes. Just that, a nice drink and some nice friends and I’d be happy.”
Indeed, “the whole Domestic Goddess thing” has become something of an embarrassment.
The phrase, coined with ironic intent for her first book, has launched a thousand editorials on the shifting place of women. “The argument has become so polarised,” she sighs. “Either you’re a bitch who spends too long in the office and never sees your children, or you’re some little throwback wanting to make things nice in the kitchen. And, of course, in real life women are both. Or neither. You have to find a way of integrating those two sides of yourself. Otherwise you go mad.”
* Nigella Kitchen on BBC Lifestyle (channel 180 on DStv) Wednesdays at 8.25pm
* Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen 2008 (5 Episodes) on BBC Lifestyle (channel 180 on DStv) daily at 6.30pm and 7pm - Sunday Tribune
Nigella’s festive treats
CHRISTMAS CAKE
A cake that can be made up to a week before Christmas.
450g raisins
120g chopped dried apricots
60g cherries
60g dried cranberries
120g prunes
250g sultanas
120g peel (if you don't like this then the zest of 2 oranges)
3 preserved root ginger balls chopped
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp brandy
4 tbsp dark rum
4 tbsp port
4 tbsp water
255g butter
255g self raising flour
255g demerera sugar
5 eggs
8in loose bottom cake tin
grease proof paper.
1 One week before: Put all the fruits, spices, sugar, vanilla, water and booze into a large pan. Mix over a low heat until the liquid is absorbed. Cool and put into an air tight container for 7 days.
2 After 7 days preheat oven to gas 1 or 150 C. Put the flour, sugar, butter and eggs into a bowl and mix until smooth. Add the fruit and mix.
3 Grease the cake tin and double line with grease proof paper. Pour cake mixture into the tin and cook for approx 3-4 hours.
4 Test with a skewer. Decorate as preferred.
CHRISTMAS CINNAMON STARS
Makes 60
2 egg white
few drops of lemon juice
150g icing sugar (sieved)
1 tbsp cinnamon
200g unpeeled ground almonds
1 Whisk the egg white until very stiff and fold in a few drops of lemon. Stir in icing sugar spoon after spoon. Take 3-4 tbsp away and keep on the side.
2 Add cinnamon to the rest and slowly stir in the ground almonds.
3 Dust the surface with icing sugar and roll out a dough 0.5 / 1cm thick.
4 Cut out stars and put on a baking tray with grease paper. brush the remaining egg white mixture on it and bake at gas 1 (150degree) for 20 mins.
5 Let cool on a wire rack. They will keep in a tin for several weeks. Put baking paper in between the layers.
HONEY CAKE
This is a traditional Christmas cake in Denmark. If you use the buttercream filling, it should be eaten within a couple of days because of the raw egg yolks. If you don’t use the buttercream filling, the cake will last for a long time. Try a slice with butter!
Cake:
8 eggs, separated
100g demerara sugar
540g honey
100g finely chopped candied peel (optional, or you can use raisins)
2 teaspoons ground all-spice
2 tsp ground dried ginger
2 tsp dried Seville orange peel (optional)
grated zest of 3 lemons
500g flour
4 tsp baking powder
Orange buttercream filling:
250g butter
150g icing sugar
50g honey
grated zest of 1 orange
juice of 1 orange
2 egg yolks
1 Whisk egg yolks with sugar and honey until white.
2 Mix baking powder, flour, peel and spices.
3 Mix wet and dry ingredients.
4 Whisk egg whites and fold them in.
5 Pour the batter in a buttered springform tin and bake at 165ºC for about 35 minutes, till the cake feels firm to touch. Let it cool completely.
Buttercream filling:
1 Put all the ingredients in a food processor until you have a soft cream.
2 Let it cool in the fridge, until it is spreadable.
3 Split the cake in three layers, spread the cream between the layers, wrap the cake in clingfilm and let it rest in a cool place for a few hours.
EGGNOG CREAM
The traditional sauce for Christmas pudding is a “hard sauce” or brandy butter, but I think this corner-cutting eggnogg cream is best of all. I think the cool cream factor is key, though you will need to whip in a tablespoon or two of icing sugar as you go.
350ml double cream
125ml advocaat liqueur
1 Put the cream into a bowl and, using an electric whisk, start whipping to aerate and thicken.
2 While it’s still floppy, whisk in the advocaat, and once the yolk-yellow, eggnogg-flavoured liqueur is combined and the cream thick but still soft, stop and spoon into a bowl and serve with the pudding.
SPICED AND SUPER-JUICY ROAST TURKEY
Soaking overnight in a fragrant brine makes this the juiciest ever turkey. Serves: 12
For the turkey:
4-5 kg turkey
6 litres water
125g packet of table salt
3 tbsp black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp caraway seeds
4 cloves
2 tbsp allspice berries
4 star anise
2 tbsp white mustard seeds
200g castor sugar
2 onions, quartered
1 x 6cm piece of ginger, cut into 6 slices
1 orange, quartered
4 tbsp maple syrup
4 tbsp clear honey
For the basting glaze:
75g butter
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 For the turkey: place the water into your largest cooking pot or bucket/ plastic bin and add all the turkey ingredients, stirring to dissolve the salt, sugar, syrup and honey. (Squeeze the juice of the orange quarters into the brine before you chuck the pieces in.)
2 Untie and remove any string or trussing attached to the turkey, shake it free and add it to the liquid. Add more water if the turkey is not submerged. Keep the mixture in a cold place for up to a day or two before you cook it, remembering to take it out of its liquid (and wiping it dry with a kitchen towel) a good 40 or 50 minutes before it has to go into the oven. Turkeys – indeed this is the case for all meat – should be at room temperature before being put in the preheated oven. If you’re at all concerned the cold water in the brine will really chill this bird, then just cook the turkey for longer than its actual weight requires.
3 For the basting glaze: place butter and syrup into a pot and cook over a low heat, stirring, until ingredients have melted and combined.
4 Brush turkey with the glaze before roasting, and baste periodically throughout the turkey roasting time.
5 Preheat the oven to 220ºC. Cook turkey for half an hour at this high temperature, then turn the oven down to 180ºC and continue cooking, turning the oven back up to 220ºC for the last quarter of an hour or so if you want to brown the skin. For a 4-5kg turkey, allow two-and-a-half to three hours in total.
But remember that ovens vary enormously, so check by piercing the flesh between leg and body with a sharp knife: when the juices run clear, the turkey’s cooked.
6 Just as it’s crucial to let the turkey reach room temperature before it goes into the oven, so is it crucial to let it stand for a good 20 minutes before you actually carve it. - Sunday Tribune